Le pays à l'envers / The Country Upside Down

A filmed travelog on the traces of Guadeloupe’s colonial history

“Where are you going?” “To Guadeloupe, where they know my name.” On the island her father left 50 years ago, Sylvaine Dampierre looks for traces of her ancestors. Her search takes her back to the age of slavery: to old registers on microfiche, to the ruins of the sugar factories, to Creole gardens. For her associative, poetic film diary, Dampierre combines interviews, choreographies by Léna Blou, accounts from her father and dialogs with her son, new footage, and private Super-8 material.